


A Spectre at the Feast

by Anarfea



Series: Laws of Men and Nature [3]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: (but not graphic or extended torture), Angst and Humor, BAMF!Janine, Ballroom Dancing, Canon Typical Violence, Dream Sequences, Dream Sex, Frottage, I swear this is not crack, Mentions of drug (ab)use, Missing Scene, Multi, Overdose, Serbia!Mycroft, Sherlock’s mind palace on drugs, Skinny Dipping, Stream of Consciousness, TS03, Torture, UST, Unreliable Narrator, ballet!Jim, enthusiastically requited Sheriarty, unrequited johnlock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-29
Updated: 2014-09-29
Packaged: 2018-02-19 04:45:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2375066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anarfea/pseuds/Anarfea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“There’s only one thing harder than stayin’ alive, Sherlock.  And that’s staying dead.”</p><p>His heart thudded in his veins at the sound of the familiar, lilting voice.  He turned to face the man he’d watched blow his brains out on top of Bart’s hospital rooftop.</p><p>“You can’t--” Sherlock protested.  “This is John’s wedding.”  </p><p>Jim stuffed his hands in his pockets and shrugged.  “There should always be a spectre at the feast.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Spectre at the Feast

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Let’s Play a Halloween Game!](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/75716) by Five Pips and Flowers. 



> With further inspiration from [this meta](http://deducingbbcsherlock.tumblr.com/post/82669485516/the-sign-of-threesomes-jim-moriarty-sends-his-love) by Deducing Sherlock. 
> 
> Thanks also to Ariane DeVere for [her transcript of The Sign of Three](http://arianedevere.livejournal.com/65379.html).  
>    
> 
> 
> And always, thanks to my crack beta team, Prurient_curiosity, Alutiv, 3littleowls, and to guest star beaubete. All mistakes are mine and were left in over their protests.

 

“Dance,” Sherlock urged, breaking the awkward silence that had followed his deduction of Mary’s pregnancy and the onset of panic it had induced in both newlyweds.  They stared at him, speechless, confounded countenances shifting hues beneath the rainbow dance floor lights, intermittently illuminated by flashes of strobe.

“Mmm?” asked John.

“Both of you, now, go dance.  We can’t just stand here.  People will wonder what we’re talking about.”  

“Right.”

“And what about you?”  Mary reached out to him, brow furrowing beneath her golden curls.  Her eyes were welling and her lip trembled.  It was hormones.  Had to be.

“Well, we can’t all three dance.” John cut her off.  “There are limits.”

A chorus of three Johns echoed in his head:

_People will talk._

_Of course we’ll be needing two bedrooms._

_I’m not actually gay._

He smiled tightly.  “Yes, there are.”  He’d never cared what people thought about his relationship with John until he’d understood that John cared.  And then he’d begun to care too, and to try not to do anything that would attract the wrong sort of attention to them.

Mary held his gaze for a moment, still looking bereft, until John cleared his throat.

Sherlock swallowed.  It would be so much easier if Mary were triumphant, if she lorded her new status over him.  Instead she was warm and friendly and had ‘talked John ’round’ and encouraged Sherlock to take John out on cases.  He badly wished he could hate her.

After a long moment, Mary took John by the arm.  “Come on, husband.  Let’s go.”

John grinned, letting her pull him.  “This isn’t a waltz, is it?”

“Don’t worry, Mary,” he tried to reassure her, about so much more than John’s dancing skills, but couldn’t when he was so unsure himself.   “I have been tutoring him.”

“He did, you know,” said John with a conspiratorial grin.  “Baker Street, behind closed curtains.”

The waltz coaching had been one thing.  Guiding John, stepping in three around 221b, he could lead while creating the illusion he was following.  He could almost pretend he was at school again, dancing with one of the older boys, one of those who always had to lead, who insisted they only studied dance to impress girls, that they didn’t fancy boys at all.

Helping John refine ‘his moves,’ had been something else.  They’d bounced about to disco hits, and for an absurd, breathless moment, Sherlock had pictured John as he might have looked in Sherlock’s clubbing days, standing against the wall in a dark t-shirt and tight jeans with hungry eyes while Sherlock writhed between a pair of shirtless, sweaty bodies on the dance floor.  He’d edged dangerously close, and John had followed him, put his hands on Sherlock’s hips.  

“Mrs Hudson came in one time.”  John laughed.  “Don’t know how _those_ rumours started!”

She’d popped in a moment later with a tray of biscuits, had frozen, open mouthed in the doorway as John’s eyes flew wide and his hands balled into fists.

Sherlock had put on his sociopath smile.  “Ah, Mrs. Hudson.  John is hopeless at waltz, so we’re trying out something more casual for the reception, but that’s not going any better.  Perhaps you should teach him some pole dance maneuvers.”  John had collapsed into guffaws, and Mrs. Hudson had hurriedly set down the tray and tittered something about how she’d mostly been typing as she’d fled.

Now, John strode with his new wife towards the dance floor without a glance towards Sherlock; it was was Mary who looked back, mouthing “thank you” as they disappeared into the sea of grooving people.  Something twisted in Sherlock’s insides, and he found himself unable to meet her troubled gaze.

He glanced around the room.  Might as well put a brave face on it and find a partner.  He’d been honest with Janine; he really did enjoy dancing.  Her skills were less than stellar, but he’d found her pleasanter company than he’d been expecting, and she’d clearly been interested.

He found her smiling face in the crowd; she was still wearing his buttonhole pinned to her dress.  She gave him a thumbs up and gestured to the ‘comics and sci fi geek’ he’d deduced earlier, the one he’d informed her was the most likely to end up in her bed tonight.  Of course.  Janine was looking to get laid, and Sherlock was, as Janine had put it, ‘whatever it is that you are.’  It had been better than ‘freak,’ or ‘poof,’ or ‘virgin,’ but it still felt ….  What did it matter?  He didn’t want to have sex with Janine, and so she was right to focus her attentions elsewhere.

As much as it rankled, Mycroft had been right.  He’d let his sentiments get the better of him; he’d made his speech and John had hugged him and he’d thought, for a moment, that … that John could love Mary, that Mary and Sherlock’s shared love for John and mutual respect for each other would be enough, that it would all work out somehow.  Simplistic.  Juvenile.

His brother loomed over him in his head, leaning forward with his hands palm down on his desk, wearing a navy suit with blood red pinstripes.

_Remember Redbeard?_

He shook his head to clear it.  There was no sense staying here and being a moping wallflower, ruining everyone else’s good time.  No one would miss him.  John had Mary.  Janine had her comics geek.  Molly had her meat dagger.  Sherlock had--

 _Alone is what I have.  Alone protects me._

_Friends protect you._

_Friends.  You go in for that sort of thing nowadays._

_Don’t you?_

There were too many voices in his head; they’d started creeping in when he’d been away--and had gotten worse since Serbia.  He carefully folded the sheet music to his waltz and tucked it into an envelope marked ‘Dr and Mrs Watson.’  He needed to get out of the noise.  He made his way across the dance floor and out into the cold night air.  The 70’s dance music became blissfully muffled when he shut the door behind him, but it wasn’t enough.  He knew only one thing that could reliably shut the voices out.  He turned up his collar, his armor, striding confidently across the dew soaked grass.  He knew what he had, what remained to him.

Purple and green lights from the DJ’s display flashed beneath his feet.  He unconsciously paced his gait to the rhythm of the fading, inane ‘do do dos,’ of “December 1963,” then froze in place when they were replaced by the tinny, electronic groove of the start of “Stayin’ Alive.”  Of all the songs on all the nights ….  He’d learned napkin folding techniques and helped Mary select bridesmaids dresses and wedding cake flavors, and yet, he’d neglected to create a blacklist of music for the reception.  Always something.

“There’s only one thing harder than stayin’ alive, Sherlock.  And that’s staying dead.”

His heart thudded in his veins at the sound of the familiar, lilting voice.  He turned to face the man he’d watched blow his brains out on top of Bart’s hospital rooftop.

Jim Moriarty stood before him in a snow white suit cut like the one he’d worn at his trial.  He sported a matching white button up and tie, and the slicked back hair and scruff he’d worn at the pool.  “I decided death didn’t become me,” he droned, a smirk playing around the corners of his lips.  “But you know all about that, don’t you?”

“You can’t--” Sherlock protested.  “This is John’s wedding.”  

Jim stuffed his hands in his pockets and shrugged.  “There should always be a spectre at the feast.”

“That’s--”

“Big Brother talking.  Go on, make a deduction.”

Sherlock huffed in relief.  “You’re not really here.”

A microphone appeared in Jim’s hand from nowhere, and he put on an exaggerated game-show host voice.  “Heee’s got it, folks!  Let’s give it up for Sherlock Holmes!”  He held his arms out to spur imaginary applause.

Sherlock buried his face deeper into his coat collar and scowled.  “So I’m …”

“Lying unconscious with a needle in your arm.  Not exactly dignified.  I never did understand you and the drugs thing, Sherlock.  I’ve always been a bit straight edge, myself.”

“You’re lying.”

He smiled slyly.  “Yeah, okay, maybe.  But it’s not really my thing.”

Sherlock stepped towards him slowly, drawing himself up to emphasise their height difference.  “I seem to recall ‘your thing’ being murder.”

Jim danced to an unheard beat, swaying closer to Sherlock.  “Oh, honey, I love it when you talk dirty to me.”

Sherlock rolled his eyes.

“But actually, I think murder is _your_ thing, Sherlock.  A date interrupted by a couple of murders is your ideal night out.”

“I’m sure I don’t want to know what yours is.”

Jim’s grin broadened.  “Dungeon.”

He blinked.

“Oh, just look at him, the little wheels are turning, aren’t they?”

“Vicky.”  The woman who didn’t quite fit in with the Mayfly Man’s other partners, who contradicted all the rest.  “You were--”

“Just tryin’ to have some fun,” Jim said, imitating his accent from the rooftop.  “So, I flirted with you online a bit.  It wouldn’t be the first time.”

He narrowed his eyes.  He’d known for some time the Anonymous commenter on John’s blog and his own was Moriarty, but he would need to re-read old posts and see if there were others.

Jim frowned, chewing his lower lip.  “You might want to ask yourself, Sherlock, why you decided to picture me as a female John Watson.”

The remark caught him off guard.  The faces he’d assigned to the Mayfly Man’s dates were fillers, hasty deductions gleaned from their syntax, the details they let slip about their jobs.  Vicki was … flirtatious.  Sex-obsessed.  Not particularly discerning.  These weren’t the characteristics that defined John.  

“Short.  Blonde.  Round faced.  Snub nosed.”  Jim rubbed his chin absently.  “It’s a pity you can’t be honest with yourself about whom you really find attractive.”

Sherlock sniffed.  “There’s nothing attractive about Vicky.”

“My point, exactly.”  Jim smirked, eyes dancing.  “But you were rather attracted to a Victor at one time.”

Sherlock bristled, reminding himself the entity before him was just his own apparition.  “Out of my head,” he snapped.

“I can’t, love, since you’re the one who’s keeping me here.  Though I have to admit I’m flattered, that it’s always me you turn to in your darkest hours.”

“That’s not--”

“Whose name did you scream in Serbia?”

He hesitated.  He had gone to Jim, then, down into the room in his mind palace he’d always kept locked, but which he found himself increasingly opening now, to the padded cell where Jim crouched like a feral thing, so much stronger than Sherlock had been when he’d been the one in the straightjacket.

“You think I’m some kind of expert on pain.”  Jim chuckled, circling close to Sherlock, cupping his chin.  “But _I’m_ not the one who’s been teaching you.  Tell me, Sherlock, which hurt more?  A lead pipe to the kidneys?  Or John Watson wrestling you to the floor and not putting his cock in you, afterwards?”

He snarled, grabbing Jim by the lapels, shaking him.

“Go on, hit me.”  Jim held his arms out, went limp, as he’d done on the rooftop.  “There’s no one here but us girls.”

Sherlock growled and headbutted Jim in the face, watched him stagger back, laughing, blood dripping onto his white shirt.  

“Oh, that was _good_.”  Jim realigned his broken nose, then wiped the red from his hand onto his thigh.  “But it didn’t hurt as good as you mooning over Watson at the pool after I pulled out all the stops for you.”  He stopped to crack his neck, then rolled his shoulders back.  “Again.”

Sherlock’s hand curled into a fist involuntarily, but he stayed his arm.

“You think you’re the only one who feels heartbreak?  Loss?”  Jim husked, his eyes wild.  “Come on, honey, hurt me.”

He grabbed the nape of Jim’s neck and crashed their lips and teeth together.  Jim went boneless in his arms, surrendering, his mouth soft and accepting of Sherlock’s thrusting tongue.  He realized that Jim probably couldn’t breathe through his broken nose, and that realization made him suddenly, desperately hard.

He shoved Jim backwards, falling on top of him, and both of them landed on the freshly turned down sheets of his bed in 221b, clothes evaporating as they hit the crisp-pressed Egyptian cotton.  The blood had vanished from Jim’s face, but he could still taste it in their kiss, along with wintergreen, which made his tongue tingle.  The air in the room smelled of gunpowder and chlorine.

“Isn’t this better?” Jim murmured, folding his arms around him.  “You could have had this earlier, if you’d only called.”  

Sherlock silenced Jim by stuffing four fingers into his mouth.  Jim groaned around them and sucked obligingly, working his tongue between them.

They rolled onto their sides, cocks and hips slotting together, and Sherlock pulled his fingers out to stroke Jim’s cheek and kiss him again.  It was more coordinated this time; their tongues and hands moved more deliberately, if no less desperately, each groaning into the other’s mouth.  They sank _through_ the bed, the pressure of the form conforming foam pressing them tighter together.

Then they dropped down, down, until there was water all around them, azure light bathing their white limbs as they writhed weightlessly around each other, Jim settling on top.  His eyes were open beneath the water, and dark.  Sherlock stared over his shoulder, up at the race lane lines on the ceiling, wondering if this was the last thing Carl Powers had seen before he died.  

He inhaled, water and Jim’s tongue filling his mouth; he sucked them both down, tasting chlorine.  His lungs were on fire and his ears itched.  Carl had had poison in his blood, in his nerves, robbing his limbs of their strength, his brain of oxygen.  Sherlock breathed a cloud of bubbles through his nose, closing his eyes.  Jim closed his hands behind his head and blew air into him.  He opened his eyes underwater to see Jim’s before his, so close they blurred together.

“Right now, your parasympathetic nervous system is depressed,” Jim said, the water having no effect on the sound of his voice.  “The cocaine has worn off, but the heroin’s effects are still strong.  Your breathing’s slowed.  Your heart rate, too.”

Ripples spread out from their bodies up towards the surface of the water, distorting the lines of Jim’s face.

“Somone’s rolled you on your side, so you’re not going to aspirate on your own vomit, but you have to keep breathing.”

Sherlock took another breath, and this time it was air instead of water, and he was falling, falling again, his Belstaff flapping around him as he plummeted towards the big blue air bag Mycroft’s team had set up in front of Bart’s.  He glanced to his left and found Jim beside him, saw that they’d jumped together, holding hands.  At the last moment, they let go of each other and turned face up.  The impact of the airbag on his back forced the breath from him.  He coughed.

“That’s good, hon,” Jim urged.  “Go on.  Breathe.  For me.”

He sucked more air through his ragged throat.  Jim rolled on top of him, in the black coat and the suit he’d worn on the rooftop, kissing him into the airbag as members of Sherlock’s homeless network and Mycroft’s minions looked on.  He eyed them warily.

“You think I care who sees us?”  Jim asked.  “Do you think I could be anything but proud to be seen snogging you?”  He rolled off the airbag, and took both of Sherlock’s hands in his.

Sherlock stood, dazed, as Jim guided him into his arms, one palm settling at the small of Sherlock’s back.  He twined the fingers of their other hands together, and took the lead, began to turn them together slowly.  They were at the wedding again, Sherlock in his best man’s tux and Jim in the bright white suit he’d worn outside, gliding in a slow waltz together as another Sherlock played a lone violin.

“I would have danced with you, love,” Jim murmured into his ear, stroking his curls.  “Did you know I did ballet as a child?”

“Truly?” Sherlock asked.

“Truly,” Jim replied, pirouetting and leaping across the floor, white suit transforming into a unitard in the air as he turned, muscled arms outstretched, pointing his bare toes.  He landed lightly on the wood, bathed in the prismatic lights of the DJ’s display.

“Why’d you think Powers laughed at me?”

Sherlock supposed he’d known.  He’d always known.  How a too clever, too femme, working class Irish boy might have made a tempting target for a star athlete like Powers.  He placed his hands on Jim’s bare biceps.  “You got the last laugh, though, didn’t you?”

Jim smiled, but his eyes stayed cold.  “Always.”

The faces of the wedding guests around them faded away, obscured by the spotlights flooding the floor which had become a stage, and Sherlock reached for Jim’s outstretched hands and pulled him close, using their joined hands as a fulcrum as they extended their bodies, toes pointing up towards the fly space.  Jim pulled Sherlock’s body to him and then spun him along his arm and away, setting him spinning, and spinning; vertigo overwhelmed him as he whirled like a gyroscope, and god, he was going to be sick, he was--

Jim stroked his sweat drenched hair.  “Go ahead and vomit, it can only help at this point.”

He doubled over as far as his chains would allow, diaphragm heaving, and the Serbian merc punched him in the stomach again.  He tasted bile in his throat, but nothing came up; he hadn’t eaten or slept in four days, and the only water he’d been permitted was warm and stale and tasted faintly of petrol.

“Just tell us how you got in, and we’ll let you sleep.”  His tormentor lifted his chin and smiled at him, showing a mouth full of fillings.  “You remember sleep?”

Sherlock tongued a loosened tooth, bit his cracked lips.  His wrists snapped against the metal shackles bolted to the walls as he was punched again.  He coughed more blood and bile, blinked at the single light hanging from the ceiling which was suddenly too bright; it glowed red through his heavy eyelids when he let them fall closed for a moment.

Jim slapped him across the face.  “No,” he hissed in Sherlock’s ear.  “You do _not_ get to sleep.  If you sleep now, you will never wake up.”  Jim took his head in both hands and turned him towards the bundled figure sitting with his legs outstretched in the corner.  “Look at him watching you.  He’s getting off.  Enjoying it.  I would know.  Don’t give him the satisfaction of doing what he expects you to do.”

He nodded weakly against Jim’s chest.

Jim violently jerked his chin up, slapping him again.  “Stay with me.”  He pushed a long strand of hair out of Sherlock’s eyes.  “It was worth it.  Every blow, every shock, every minute spent in a stress position.  All those tidbits your brother fed me about you.”

Sherlock swayed in his binds.

“Did he tell you I covered the walls in your name?”

The merc laid a hand on his torn shoulder, leaned in from behind him.  “Tell us, and we’ll let you sleep.  Otherwise ...” he brandished the pipe at him.

He knew a blow from that kind of weapon could be crippling, and still found himself too tired to feel fear.  His most coherent thought was how thirsty he was.  His throat was parched.  But there were some things he wouldn’t give for water, and the truth was one of them.

“That’d be the dehydration, love.”

Jim brought Sherlock’s lips to his, and his mouth was blissfully moist.  He licked inside, tongue straining, and whimpered when Jim pulled away again.

“Stay awake just a little longer.  You’re mostly out of danger now, but still too fucked up to remember any of this, which is a pity.  I always tell you what’s coming, Sherlock.  But you never listen.”

Jim unfastened his manacles from the ceiling, and he fell forwards, onto his belly, flopping on top of a bare mattress in a smackhouse.  No.  It was his own bed, his own fitted sheet, but the duvet had been stripped.  

Sherlock groaned.  His mouth tasted like bile and tobacco ash.  His eyelids had been removed and replaced with sheets of sandpaper.  The deep ache of bruises all over his body suggested he’d fallen.  Possibly he’d hit his head, given the pulsing pains driving through his skull into his brain stem.  He felt bad.

“Hush now,” a dark haired woman whispered over him.

 _I’m only returning your coat._

“Irene?” he croaked.

“Jim Moriarty sends his love,” she whispered.

Whiteness descended on him, or perhaps it was just a clean sheet being folded over his head.

He woke again, disappointed to find the additional sleep had done nothing to improve his condition.  He was definitely in his own bed with a sheet over him, still in his trousers from the night before, though his feet were bare and he was naked from the waist up.  He remembered removing his shoes when he came into the flat, and his jacket and tie before shooting up.  The missing shirt he could not account for; he’d merely rolled up his sleeve.  His eyes fixed upon a glass of water on his nightstand.  Presumably whomever had taken off his shirt had also left it there.

“You should probably drink that.”  The voice seemed to come from three places at once; he let his brain triangulate and rolled over.  Janine was sitting on one of the dining room chairs, which she’d relocated to the foot of his bed.  She was wrapped in his blue dressing gown--why were women always stealing his dressing gowns?

“How’d you get in here?” he slurred.

“I picked your locks.  You should probably switch out your deadbolt.”

He frowned.  She still had a flower tucked behind her ear, though it was somewhat worse for wear.  Clearly, she had not gone home after the wedding.  “D’you always carry lockpicks?” he asked, reaching for the water.  His fingers were shaking uncontrollably.

She smirked.  “Asks the man who always carries handcuffs.”

His throat hurt too badly to laugh, so he coughed instead.  

“I intended to bring the comics geek back to mine, but you looked like a kicked puppy when you left the night do, so I thought I’d stop by to make sure you were alright instead.”  She paused.  “Glad I did.  You really oughtn’t mix cocaine with heroin, you know.”

He rolled his eyes.

“I did try ringing you first.  But you didn’t answer, so ...”  She shrugged.  “I rang your landlady’s bell instead.  I was fibbing about the lockpicks, by the way.  She let me in.”

That made slightly better sense, but then--

“You were passed out on the floor in front of the couch.  I think you rolled off.  Lucky for you, the syringe fell out of your arm instead of going through your vein.”  
He winced.  Mrs Hudson knew his history, but he hadn’t meant for her to ever see him like that.

“She wanted to call 999, but I convinced her you looked unlikely to die and that you probably wanted to stay out of my boss’s newspapers.”  She leaned back in her chair.  “Once the decision was made, though, I have to say she handled herself pretty well.  I suspect it wasn’t the first time she’d nursed someone through an OD.”

“Nor yours, apparently.”

Janine smiled like a sphinx.

“Who’s your boss?” he asked, changing the subject.  “And shouldn’t you be at work already?  It’s ...” he blinked at the window, “too bright.”

“Charles Augustus Magnussen.  And I’ve already taken leave for today.  I was supposed to be sleeping in after a stellar shag, but…”

He thought about mentioning he hadn’t asked her to come over, but in truth, he was aware that he’d taken more than he could handle last night.  He hadn’t fully accounted for the difference his long hiatus from heroin would make in his tolerance.  “Thank you,” he said, bringing the water to his lips with both hands.

She stood up and began to stretch.  “Way I see it, you now owe me a favor, and I’m always happy to be owed a favor.”

The water was wonderfully cool on his tongue.  He swallowed slowly, resisting the urge to down the whole glass.  “Wha’d’you want?” he asked.

Her lip quirked.  “Nothing, yet.  In fact, I’ll make you breakfast, if you have anything edible in that fridge of yours.  Then you’ll owe me two favors.”

“All inedible.”  He took another long sip, then set the glass back on the nightstand, sloshing water onto the wood.  He collapsed onto his belly.  His pillows were missing.  Probably just as well; the sheets smelled faintly of sick.

“Right, then.  I’ll get something from the cafe downstairs.”  She stood up and walked towards the door.

“Aren’t you going to dress?” he asked.

She raised an eyebrow.  “You vomited all over the dress I wore last night, Sherlock Holmes.”

“Sorry about that,” he said.

She waved a hand dismissively.  “No matter.  I was never going to wear it again anyway.  Ghastly color.”

He frowned.  “I picked that colour.”

“I know.”  She winked at him.  “Don’t tell Mary.”

He tried to shrug but found his shoulders uncooperative.

“Anyway, I doubt Mr Chatterjee will mind if I go into his cafe in your robe.  He was trying to chat me up at the reception.  Dirty old man.”  She adjusted the dressing gown, either to make sure it covered her leg or to make sure Sherlock got a glimpse of it, and re-tied the sash.

“Janine.”

She paused.

“You know I’m …”

She turned to face him slowly, her expression soft.  “I know.”  

He tried to shrug into a seated position, and managed only a half slump up from the mattress.  “Would you be willing to overlook that?”

A slow, bright smile spread over her face.  “Alright.  But just until I find someone prettier.  And you still owe me.”

“Fine,” he said, slumping back in the bed again.  “I owe you.”

“Yes, you do,” she said, and slipped out of his bedroom, closing the door behind her.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [What Within I Keep](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3898744) by [HiddenLacuna](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HiddenLacuna/pseuds/HiddenLacuna)




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